55 posts from June 2007

June 27, 2007

The Jewish Press reports on the new Chabad museum, community center, synagogue and school planned for Alaska:

Chicago philanthropist Rabbi Morris Esformes has pledged to sponsor two new historic landmarks: the Alaska Jewish Historical Museum and Community Center, and a separate facility for the synagogue, preschool, and future day school of the Lubavitch Center of Alaska.

The pledge was made during a welcoming reception and dinner for Esformes at the Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska, an event led by Lubavitch Center director Rabbi Yosef Greenberg; Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich; State House of Representatives Speaker John Harris; former Anchorage mayor, Rick Mystrom; and renowned founding Alaskan Jewish community members, David and Shani Green.…

But despite this, the project was under-funded. Enter Chicago philanthropist Rabbi Morris Esformes, known for his generosity towards educational and humanitarian institutions across the globe, and for his support of small Jewish communities around America. “Every child should have the opportunity to receive some form of Jewish education,” Esformes says.

Toward this end, Esformes has been involved in establishing Jewish community centers, preschools, Talmud Torahs, Sunday schools and Jewish day schools across America…

Sounds nice, doesn't it? Well, not really. Esformes made his money from poorly run nursing homes and fraud:

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2006/November/06_civ_803.html

Larkin Community Hospital in Miami and its current and former
owners, Dr. Jack Michel, Dr. James Desnick, Morris Esformes and Philip
Esformes, have paid $15.4 million to settle federal and Florida civil health
care fraud claims against them, the Justice Department announced today.
Additionally, 34 related companies owned by the Esformes that were used to
operate nine assisted living facilities are part of the settlement along with
Claudia Pace, an employee of one of the Esformes-owned companies; and Frank
Palacios, a long-time employee of the hospital.

The settlement resolves the civil case entitled United States v. Jack Jacobo
Michel, M.D., et al., which the government filed in 2004, alleging violations
of the False Claims Act. The state of Florida joined the suit later that year.

The government alleged that in 1997, Larkin, then owned by Desnick, paid
kickbacks to physicians in return for patient admissions. The United States
contended that the primary recipient of the kickbacks was Jack Michel, who was
paid for patient admissions to Larkin by himself and his brother, Dr. George
Michel. Jack Michel purchased Larkin in 1998. In 2000, Desnick was a party to
a $14 million settlement with the United States for a similar kickback scheme
from 1992 to 2000 at another facility he owned, Doctors Hospital of Hyde Park
in Chicago.

The United States also alleged in the Michel suit that from 1998 to 1999, Jack
Michel, George Michel, Morris Esformes, Philip Esformes, Frank Palacios and
Claudia Pace conspired to admit patients to Larkin for medically unnecessary
treatment. The government asserted that some of these patients came from
assisted living facilities owned and operated by Jack Michel, Morris Esformes
and Philip Esformes.

“The Department of Justice is committed to vigorously litigating cases about
conduct that undermines the integrity of the Medicare and Medicaid programs,”
said Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General for the Department’s Civil
Division. “We will not tolerate health care providers who pay kickbacks or
perform medically unnecessary treatments on elderly beneficiaries in order to
generate Medicare and Medicaid payments.”

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
Office of Inspector General; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and the
Florida Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. The case was handled by the Justice
Department’s Civil Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern
District of Florida in Miami and the Office of the Attorney General of the
state of Florida.

Rabbi Esformes is a bad man. But that does not stop Orthodox Jewish causes across the world from taking his money – money earned on the backs of taxpayers and vulnerable adults – and honoring him. Conservative institutions like the University of Chicago have taken money from Esformes and honored him.

What good is Judaism if a man like Esformes can be honored? Not much good, I'd say.

The US Military's only Messianic Jewish chaplain is profiled here. Long time FailedMessiah reader and military man Brian Kresge notes the potential problems with having a Messianic Jew serve as a chaplain.

Does the military consider this chaplain to be a Jewish chaplain? If it does, I think we should object. If it does not, and classifies him as Christian or as a separate stream, I don't think there is much we can do.

[Not to be overly cynical, but I do not think this is the only messianic chaplain in the US Military – Chabad rabbis serve as chaplains. The theology is largely the same – only the name of the messiah has been changed. Christianity started out as Rebbe-centric Judaism. People tend to forget this.]

The songs
of 20-year-old Eliyahu Faizkov, a yeshiva student from Netanya, were
recently banned by haredi pirate radio stations because his voice is
uncannily feminine.

"At first my songs were received positively by the haredi radio
stations," Faizkov told the Ynet Web site. "But I suddenly noticed that
they stopped playing my songs. It was as if someone confiscated them
all. I contacted the stations to find out what was going on and the
answer I got was precisely what I had feared, 'Your voice is too
feminine.'"

Apparently, listeners had called in to complain about Faizkov's voice.

According to many Orthodox rabbinic authorities, Jewish law
forbids men to listen to a female singer's voice, even if it is taped
and even if the listener does not know what the woman looks like. In
Jewish law, listening to a singing woman's voice is compared to viewing
parts of a woman's body that are normally kept covered.…

Visitors to any capital city in the former Soviet Union are likely
to find a building much like the one at Kropotkina 22 in central Minsk.
Situated on prime real estate and a stone's throw from the U.S.
Embassy, it bears the insignia of Chabad-Lubavitch.

Yet this particular Chabad synagogue and community center is
strikingly different from its neighbors in the Belarusian capital: It's
as empty as a ghost town. The center, with its cracked brown façade and
rusted gates, is visual testimony to the fate in Belarus of Chabad, the
most widespread and arguably most influential Jewish organization in
nearly every other country of the former Soviet Union.…

How do we stop the exponential growth of Chabad in Eastern Europe? Keep reading this article to see. But I'll give you my conclusion now – fair, open and pluralistic community structures. Freedom of choice has a remarkably toxic effect on fundamentalism. So too, by the way, does adequate funding for alternatives from the Reform Movement to Modern Orthodoxy to secular Judaism.

…In a letter sent to the members of the Chief
Rabbinate, Eliyahu wrote, "Someone in the position of a rabbi should be
a man of values, moral and conscience, an impeccable man, and certainly
innocent of forbidden sexual relations.

"It is our duty as rabbis and members of Israel's Chief
Rabbinate to set rules according to which a man who is suspected of
forbidden relations is temporarily suspended from his role. A man who
confesses must not be able to serve as rabbi in a public role."…

While the idea is good, I would only point out that one of the current chief rabbis along with other sitting rabbis would seemingly need to be suspended under this proposed rule. The Rabbinute is set to debate Rabbi Eliyahu's idea this Thursday.

The Christian Science Monitor has rather belated coverage of the armed citizen street patrols started in New Haven, Connecticut after a forced entry of the home of an adult son of a prominent rabbi. The rabbi's son was was beaten in what police describe as a random attack. The man behind the patrols, Rabbi Daniel Greer, is not someone I personally like. Here is one reason why. Still, I support the idea of street patrols. What I question is having members of those patrols carry guns. I also question whether Rabbi Greer would have formed street patrols if the victim of that attack had been black and unrelated to him.

The New Haven Register has earlier coverage of this. It also has extensive talkbacks posted from readers.

So? Untrained and unsupervised civilians in armed street patrols? Good idea? I'm torn between the need for protection and the very real possibility of disaster caused by untrained armed patrols. What do you think?

According to a report in Ynet, haredi vandalism during protests against the Gay Pride march cost the city of Jerusalem $100,000. Haredim burned garbage dumpsters, stoned police, damaged buses and other municipal property. A member of Jerusalem's city council wants to deduct this money from city social service funds budgeted for haredi areas of the city.

June 25, 2007

Matthew Wagner of the Jerusalem Post clarifies an earlier, cryptic report from Ha'aretz regarding problems in the Israeli conversion apparatus in dealing with Ethiopians. Wagner reports:

About 50 new immigrants from Ethiopia, candidates for conversion to Judaism, hiked in Sunday's simmering summer heat from Arad toward Jerusalem in protest of the inability of the Conversion Authority, the Jewish Agency and the Absorption Ministry to coordinate to help them join the Jewish people.

Police managed to stop them after several kilometers when representatives from the three groups agreed to meet with them.

These young men and women are participants in the Kedma program.

During the preparatory one-year program, participants, all new immigrants who are not Jewish according to Orthodox Jewish law, are taught Judaism before conversion.

After conversion some are enrolled in higher education institutions.

However, during the five years since Kedma was created, approximately 500 have dropped out due to a lack of coordination between the Conversion Authority and other organizations that deal with immigration absorption.

Rabbinic judges of the conversion courts refuse to convert these young men and women until they are sure that after the conversion they will be enrolled in religious educational institutions.

Meanwhile, the organizations responsible for placement of these students in educational institutions refuse to fund tuitions and dormitory costs for the religious institutions. As a result, potential converts are stuck.

Also, young people who return home are often not called to appear before a conversion court to complete the conversion process.

Rabbi Menachem Waldman, Head of the Shvut Am Institute, who is responsible for the spiritual aspects of the absorption of Ethiopian immigrants, called the situation "a tragedy".

Waldman explained, "We have young people with motivation to join the Jewish people. But these kids face a bureaucratic system that places obstacles in their way."

In other words, the Ethiopians wish to obtain educational training so they can be gainfully employed. Rabbis – late in the game and without valid halakhic grounds – demand that the new converts attend only religious schools. But the people charged with funding education for these Ethiopians will not pay for religious schools. So the Ethiopians languish. And, if they should dare to go home to thier families in the absorption centers or slums, the rabbis simply do not call them in for their final conversion test.

But the problems with conversions run deeper. In a sister article, Wagner reports workers in the Conversion Authority are going out on strike:

Workers in the Conversion Authority, the government body responsible for converting immigrants, are planning to strike in protest against what they call the "unbearable working environment" created by a protracted power struggle between rabbis and rabbinic judges.

The Conversion Authority's administrative employees - not including rabbinic judges - recently met and agreed to declare a labor dispute that would paralyze operations, thus effectively bringing to a halt all conversions.…

At the meeting, workers expressed a feeling of "total despair" resulting from the worsened working relations between various rabbinic groups within the authority. Some of the workers complained that they were receiving contradictory orders, while others complained of a total lack of the trust necessary for the authority to function properly.…

Here is the breakdown of the power struggle:

…There are
two vying camps within the authority. In one camp is Rabbi Eliyahu
Maimon, administrative head of the authority, who enjoys the backing of
most of the authority's 25 rabbinic judges who preside in the rabbinic
courts responsible for conversions. He has the backing of [Ya'akov] Zeltzer [head of the Histadrut workers union].

In the other camp is Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Rabbi Haim Druckman, the senior rabbinic authority in the authority.…

Maimon is seen as blocking most conversion. Rabbi Druckman is a moderate and Rabbi Amar is moderate on conversions done for "lost" populations of "former" Jews.

My guess here is to follow the money. Hundreds of Ethiopians forced to attend yeshivot instead of trade schools means hundreds of thousands of dollars in the coffers of those yeshivot. Ethiopians overwhelmingly attend National Religious yeshivot. In this case, the bad guys may be Modern Orthodox rabbis.

[I'd also note that, for all of you who have previously attacked Rabbi Druckman, it seems Rabbi Amar – Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's chosen successor – has no trouble working with and relying on Rabbi Druckman.]

Over three evenings last month, several dozen writers gathered … for a bizarre rite of passage:
the Jewish book tour casting call. In a combination of “The Gong Show”
and speed-dating, they each had two minutes to pitch their books to the
Jewish Book Network, 100 cultural programmers from Jewish community
centers, or J.C.C.’s, synagogues and libraries nationwide. An M.C.
ruthlessly held up a sign when one minute was up and cheerily announced
“on deck” to prepare the next speaker.…

Sad as this spectacle seems, it is so important publishers and authors pay their own way to get those two minutes to pitch. Needless to say, it is not the writing that wins out. It's all about the pitch and the allure each author creates.

Does the Jewish Book Council help Jewish authors get published? Yes, it certainly does. But somehow I can't get away from the feeling that if Bernard Malamud or Chaim Grade were pitching their early works as unknowns, the JBC's constituent book fairs would pass them by.

If you want to see how unimportant good literature is to today's Jewish community, check out its major publications. How many regularly publish short fiction? None do. (There is a big announcement coming soon, though, that will change this equation a bit. But this is a case of a lone editor who truly cares.)

Most major authors in all genres start out writing short fiction. From Stephen King to I.B. Singer, it was short fiction published in newspapers or popular magazines that got them noticed and got them work.

Our magazines and newspapers stopped regularly publishing fiction long ago, as did most of their mainstream counterparts. This forces writers to write for literary journals, many of which cater to academic rather than artistic or popular tastes.

This situation has been made even worse by publishers, whose ownership has changed in the last decade from people who saw themselves as the supporters of good literature to conglomerates who see themselves strictly as profit and loss statements. These new publishing executives have hardened the genre markets, regularly passing on exceptional literature they cannot easily market as Chick Lit or Suspense.

These publishers regularly complain about flat sales, while they continue to follow the same policies that led to them.

These publishing giants have eliminated the mid-list, the titles that break even or make a few bucks that were published largely because of artistic merit. The idea used to be that publishers groomed writers and helped them develop. The idea now is you come in perfect and whole, fitting into a specific genre, following the most current "right" formula. Anything less or different than that and you're out.

Agents now regularly reject manuscripts from even published authors, scribbling "needs work," on the cover and, if the author is especially lucky, a few extra words on what it is exactly that needs to be "fixed."

What this means is that we and our larger society lack, to use a
baseball analogy, farm teams. This means our newer major league players
largely come out of academia, where the salary and downtime allow for writing, and much of the resulting fiction lacks a true
creative edge and popular appeal as a result.

And this is not simply an elitist bleat. John Sanford (whose real name is John Camp), author of the large-selling Prey series, told a friend of mine that, if he were starting out today, he would not be published. The gates are simply too well guarded and the expectations too high.

What does this mean for you? I think it means your children will care less about reading because there is less really good reading to care about, Jewish or otherwise.

(Before you point to Englander, Safran Foer, and Chabon to prove me wrong, remember each of these authors got their start before the big consolidations in the publishing industry.)

I once sat at a vort, an engagement party, for a friend, the son of a well-known intellectual. My friend had grown up frum, attended only Chabad schools, and was about to receive smicha. Following the Chabad custom, my friend was to recite a ma'amar, a Chasidic discourse, by heart. He sat there in his black hat and dark suit and tried, his hevruta by his side, prompting him often – very often. And even that help was not enough to get him through.

His father spoke after the ma'amar. He thanked the head of Chabad in the area, the head of the cheder his son had graduated from, and the heads of the yeshivot he had attended for making his son illiterate in three languages.

The secular Jewish community fails just like this. We have the trappings of culture, our versions of black hats and dark suits, a Yiddish word or two used in conversation, but little actual culture. We moan about continuity and fret about decreasing numbers but do nothing that promotes anything but the most banal.

Who stays? Happy Jews, Jews without questions, Jews by route. Who goes? Pretty much everyone else, and they are the majority.

Would you work for years to turn out a special work – fiction or nonfiction – if you knew your two minute presentation would be upstaged by an author whose only claim to being Jewish is birth and perhaps the name of one character in his work? Or that you would be ignored by Jewish book fair promoters who are more drawn to the look of the author than the work the author produces? Of course not. You'd turn out trash and spend your time getting your clothes, hair and presentation down, or you'd find something else to do with your life.

We cannot sustain a secular or a cross-denominational Jewish culture based on two minute gong show appearances. There must be a better way.

June 24, 2007

Fifty-nine Ethiopian immigrant youths on Sunday began a march from the Yifat immigrant absorption center in Arad to Be'er Sheva to demand that they be allowed to appear before rabbinical conversion courts for final conversion exams.

The youths have waited more than a year and a half to be summoned for conversion tests at the rabbinical courts to complete their conversions. Converting would allow the youths to change their status from permanent residents to citizens of Israel.

One of the marchers, Teddy, said "we want to convert and have waited over a year and a half. That's why we decided to march, in spite of the heat, in the hope that someone will hear us and understand how much we want this."

Conditions set by the 'Shebot Am" Jewish identity center for conversion have delayed the final conversion exams for around 150 Ethiopian immigrant youth, all of whom finished their Judaism studies as part of the "Kidma" program.

An official who works in conversions in Israel stated that a few weeks ago authorities at the rabbinical courts decided that before youths would be allowed to appear before the court for their exams, they would have to inform them if they will live in a community where they will be capable of following Jewish Law.…

This is a bizarre story. First of all, the rabbinic courts are under the control of Israel's haredi Sefardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar. Rabbi Amar ruled these Falash Mura must be saved and brought to Israel. He also ruled they must convert.

What is the point of making these people wait? Of throwing up roadblocks to their conversions?

Every city in Israel has a rabbi. Kosher food is widely available. Every city has mikvaot. The slums where these Ethiopians live usually have synagogues – if they do not, the Rabbinate can easily open one.

If the goal is to make these people hate Judaism, the rabbis are doing the correct thing. If the goal is to integrate them and to welcome them back to Judaism (i.e., follow Rabbi Amar's ruling) the Rabbinate has, yet again, failed.

Rabbi Amar heads the religious court system. Perhaps he can explain what it is these rabbis are doing in his name.

…During a radio show on which he replies to
halachic questions, the rabbi, son of Shas’ spiritual leader Ovadia
Yosef, was asked by a listener whether names should be changed if, for
instance, the bride and her mother-in-law share the same name.

The rabbi answered that a name must never be changed, though
another name can be added to the first name, unless one carries the
name of “an evil, indecent figure” like Herzl, the founder of Zionism,
or the biblical Nimrod. “One must be careful not to name his children
by these names,” [Rabbi Avraham] Yosef stressed.…

Photographs: On the left, Rabbi Avraham Yosef; on the right, Theodore Herzl.

June 22, 2007

The Jewish Labor Committee honored Greg Rosenbaum, CEO of Empire Kosher Poultry, with the National Trade Union Council for Human Rights Award, in recognition of Empire’s exemplary partnership with its union members. The award ceremony took place at the JLC’s annual dinner in New York City on Wednesday evening.

The Jewish Labor Committee annually honors those who show leadership and defend Jewish ethics in the labor movement.

Empire Kosher Poultry, the nation’s largest processor of kosher poultry, is a union facility that proudly employs 500 union members.

In accepting the award Rosenbaum stated, “Empire is proud to uphold not only the strictest standards of kosher law, but also Jewish ethics in our interaction with our workforce.”

Over 500 people attended Wednesday’s dinner at New York’s Sheraton Hotel, including New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg.…

June 21, 2007

Recently, within the last week. A Chabad cheder in a haredi town not that far from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. A 13 year old boy molests more than 10 younger boys, leading them into the bathroom and groping them. The administration of the school is notified. The principal warns the molester – you do this again, you get thrown out of school and we call the police. The school does not tell parents or arrange counseling for the victims – or for the molester.

Less than two weeks later the molester is caught abusing in the school again and is expelled or suspended from school. It is unclear if police are called. Parents are not notified. No counselors are brought in.

I told a parent of two of these victims, boys under 9 years old, that he needs to get them counseling and that he should be prepared to have them in therapy for a long time, perhaps for years, if necessary.

This molester was allowed to remain in school. Parents were not consulted. And, it seems, even now police have not been called. I used to think Chabad was better than most Orthodox groups when it came to handling abuse and molestation. I no longer believe that.

A Chabad man serves as the hazzan of a Chabad synagogue. Several years ago, outside another synagogue after a community event, the Chabad hazzan sexually assaults a woman who is a member of the Chabad synagogue. He is eventually arrested and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of lewd conduct. He is sentenced, serves a very brief time, is given probation and community service.

Meanwhile, the victim civilly sues Chabad, in part because she claims Chabad sheltered the hazzan. Now Chabad has sought a judgment against the victim for more than $175,000 in attorneys' fees, and a judge is about to grant that.

Immediately after the arrest, Rabbi Harlig falsely claimed this victim – who worked in the synagogue's kitchen – was not Jewish. She went to the RCA's beit din. They investigated and found Rabbi Harlig's claim false. The woman is the daughter of a Jewish holocaust survivor from Vienna, Austria. The beit din issued her a document verifying her Jewishness. But, during the time the beit din was investigating Rabbi Harlig's false claims, this woman's teenage son – a very active synagogue goer and participant – was forced to sit in the back of the synagogue. He was banned from receiving aliyot or leading services. And he was shunned by other members, as was his mother, apparently at the direction of Rabbi Harlig.

And the man who attempted to rape this woman? He is a proud member of Chabad to this day, leading services and fully participating in synagogue life.

A double standard? You bet it is. And that double standard is sanctioned by and orchestrated by Chabad-Lubavitch.

Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum. a convicted swindler with a 30 year track record of shady dealings, is the director of Igud HaRabbonim, a haredi rabbinic organization. Rabbi Tannenbaum writes a regular column for the Jewish Press which, like Igud, seems not to care about Rabbi Tannenbaum's lack of honesty. In this week's column, Rabbi Tannenbaum documents the visit of Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, himself a shifty character with a track record of alleged extortion at weddings and other misbehavior. Rabbi Metger found time to visit Igud HaRabbonim, as Rabbi Tannenbaum reports:

…Rabbi Abraham B. Hecht [president of Igud HaRabbonim] warmly greeted Rabbi Metzger, highlighting Torah and Halachah leadership of the present rabbinate in Israel. Rabbi Hecht stressed the impressive resolve of the chief rabbi to carry the message of that leadership to all corners of the world, praising his participation in raising morality wherever possible.

Rabbi Hecht presented Rabbi Metzger with the Igud’s latest Torah publication, Natrona D’Oreisa, a compendium of Torah insights by Igud member rabbis, and with My Spiritual Journey, Rabbi Hecht’s autobiography. On behalf of the entire Igud membership, Rabbi Hecht committed the support of the Igud to the Torah efforts being conducted by the offices of the chief rabbis.

He conveyed the pain caused by the threatened march in Jerusalem by anthropological misfits. Rabbi Yehuda Levin, [former co-chair of Pat Buchannan's presidential campaign] rav of Khal Mevakshei Hashem in Flatbush, [read this and this] represented the Igud in the to-date successful battle against this effort. Rabbi Hecht implored the chief rabbi to employ all the moral power and international prestige of the Chief Rabbinate to stop the march. A resolution on behalf of the Igud against the immoral parade was presented by Rabbi Hecht to Rabbi Metzger.…

Who is Rabbi Abraham B. Hecht? A Lubavitcher who was very close to the late Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Rabbi Hecht infamously argued, based on the late Rebbe's works, that territorial concessions made to Palestinians amounted to mesira, informing, turning Jews over to non-Jews, and that Israel's leaders – then-Prime Minister Ytzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and others – were halakhicly informers. He then argued that, since Maimonides ruled that informers should be killed before they can inform, Rabin, et all, should be killed before they turn over any land. Rabbi Hecht said this on June 19, 1995. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated 4 and 1/2 months later, by a religious Jew who used the same argument Rabbi Hecht made to justify his act. In the wake of the Rabbi Hecht was banned from Israel and faced widespread censure. The travel ban was later lifted after Rabbi Hecht "apologized."

Why is Rabbi Metzger visiting a group led by this man? A group also directed by a swindler? So much for loyalty to the State or to halakha.

And then we have the Jerusalem Gay Pride March. It is unclear whether Metzger used the term "anthropological misfits" or if this is simply an Tannenbaum's phrasing. Either way, this type of discourse is wrong and should be shunned by people who fancy themselves "religious leaders."

Rabbi Metzger raised the issue of the Naturei Karta members who went to Iran and participated in the Holocaust denial conference there. Metzger has been instrumental in having these deviants banned from Israel and expelled from their home Jewish communities.

Rabbi Tannenbaum, however, parses the issue this way:

…The misanthropes, who posed as members of Neturei Karta and attended the conference of Holocaust denial in Tehran…

What more needs to be said? These men were the leaders of Neturei Karta. Tannenbaum implies that there are 'good' Neturei Karta members and ideologues who simply hate the State of Israel and burn an occasional Israeli flag. They may wish for Arab conquest of Jerusalem and the dejudafication of Tel Aviv, Netanya and Qiryat Gat. Oh, but they are 'good' NK members. It's just those over the top NK leaders, those poseurs, who we need to reject. That's right – burn your Israeli flags in peace. March with Hamas. Ask Syria to attack Israel. That's all fine. Just do not go to Iran and embarrass the rest of us.

This is sick stuff, and it carries the imprimatur of the Chief Rabbinate. Truly frightening.

June 20, 2007

If you ever spent any significant time in Crown Heights or on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, you probably met Charlie "Buttons." Singing Shabbos songs on the subway during rush hour, hanging out in Linclon Square Synagogue or in 770, Charlie always seems to be there, spreading his special brand of good cheer.

ABC World News Tonight had a piece tonight on the shrinking size of Americans. That's right, we're getting shorter – we're now the shortest western industrialized country. Not so long ago, we were the tallest. And, experts say, this new height disparity is not due to immigration – it comes from poor diet and a lack of exercise.

So what does this have to do with Charlie? Not much. So why mention Charlie in a post about the newly shrinking American? Because the shoot was done outside the MacDonald's on 71st and Amsterdam. And who walks by heading toward Lincoln Square near the end of the clip? Charlie "Buttons."

This will mean little to most people. But, to many of who spent time in CH or the UWS, seeing Charlie brings back pleasant memories and puts a smile on our faces. And, after all that is what Charlie is about.

June 19, 2007

…In the absence of a leader, there has been a messianic reaction. Based on fragmentary remarks by the Rebbe himself, many of his followers believe that he is the Messiah, and that he will return from the dead to once again lead his followers, and not only his followers, but all the world, into the Messianic era. The belief is certainly not mainstream Judaism, and in the eyes of many is a blasphemy to Judaism no different from the messianic beliefs of Christianity. That the Rebbe's great piety, scholarship, and love of Israel should be sullied by such an unacceptable heresy is a grievous tragedy.…

Ynet reports on the 7,000 homeless street kids that haunt Jerusalem. Although the article and accompanying video don't mention it, a disproportionate number of these kids are from religious homes.

I tried to get Chabad involved in working with these kids in 1994 and early 1995, to no avail. (No other haredi group got involved, either.) Back then, many of the kids who hung out in Zion Square, drinking and smoking dope were westerners who were tossed out of (or were about to be tossed out of) various yeshivot, seminaries and programs. Others were haredim who were booted out of Mea Shearim for various transgressions and religious kids from Har Nof looking to score drugs. All in all, there were perhaps two hundred kids, and most were not really homeless.

There was a lone American haredi guy, Melech (I can't remember his last name) who tried to work with these kids. But outside of him the problem was largely ignored.

Now, in small city, there are 7,000 homeless Jewish teens – 7,000. Before you plant another tree or support any of the various haredi yeshivot that forbid work and army service, find a way to get money to people working with and helping these kids. If any of you know of viable programs that do so, please leave info on them in the comments section so we can check them out. Thanks.

The father of modern science Sir Isaac Newton (remember the apple falling from the tree?) was also a millenarian and a theologian (he thought the world would end in 2060). Above is a page from a treatises he wrote. The diagram is of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The Jewish National and University Library at Hebrew University has an exhibit of these more unusual aspects of Newton's career, and Ha'aretz has a story on the exhibit.

Fundamentalists tend to think of science as Godless. In fact, until very recently, nothing could be further from the truth. But as science matured and more data was assembled, it became clear that the creation stories of the Bible could not be literally true. When this happened, religion reacted in one of two ways. The first, view the Bible's creation stories as classical myth; the second, reject science. Fundamentalists, including haredim, took the second path.

As science further advanced through genetics and other molecular science, it became clear that all of the Bible's origin myths – creation, the flood, the timeline of creation, etc. – could not be literally true. Again, religion reacted in one of two ways, just as before. Haredim again took the second path, joining Christian fundamentalists and the wingnuts at the Creation Museum.

Science amasses data, sifts that data and runs it through a series of checks and balances that, eventually, lead to things like space travel and antibiotics. It searches for empirical truth.

On the other hand, fundamentalism starts with a theological "truth" and seeks to "prove" that "truth" by any means possible. Those means include suspension of reality, denial and misrepresentation.

I believe history shows the fundamentalist approach is foreign to Judaism and to the roots of Christianity. God does not want us to suspend rational thought, to close our eyes to the truth around us. Rabbinic literature often notes that the Torah speaks in the language of man. This means difficult concepts are explained in simple terms, like creation myths and flood stories, and things like genetic mutation and astrophysics are not mentioned because mankind would not have understood the concepts 3300 years ago when the Torah was, according to tradition, given on Mount Sinai.

Fundamentalists have put all their eggs in a very fragile basket. As that basket begins to disintegrate, their efforts to hold it together become more frantic. Soon, their eggs will fall to the ground and shatter. When that happens, many fundamentalists will leave their faith. Others, however, will withdraw further into their own insular worlds, walled off from the rest of society, willfully blind.

Secularists and those religions that have adapted to modernity will continue to discover cures for crippling diseases and technology that makes life more productive and comfortable. They will treat diseases and create wealth. For the most part, fundamentalists will do none of this.

A world filled with fundamentalists is a world covered in darkness. Please do not bequeath this darkness to your children.

June 18, 2007

In a strong piece of investigative journalism, Ha'aretz has uncovered fraud involving the haredi Agudath Israel school system and the Education Ministry. In effect, what has happened is that, in order to buy votes from haredim, the government has turned a blind eye to massive fraud. Haredim take money meant ot pay teachers and instead use much of that money to provide incentives to get poor and lower middle class non-haredim to turn their children over to the haredi school system.

Through this fraud, Haredim provide students free lunches and free transportation while state schools cannot.

Haredi schools are budgeted by the state as if they had a full staff of teachers teaching science, math, English, etc., but they do not, and the teachers they have do not get pensions and are paid less than than minimum wage. These teachers then rely on the state for further welfare benefits in order to survive while the rest of their budgeted compensation is used to lure non-haredi students into the system.

This all takes money away from state schools and hurts academic achievement there. It also puts added strain on the welfare system. And, as Ha'aretz notes, it does one more thing as well:

This is how the state, with its eyes wide open and knowing exactly what is happening, is paying for the movement of students from schools that teach them to be good citizens, serve in the army and go to work to schools that teach only religion [and oppose work and army service]…

Rabbi Tzik Zimroni, perhaps the most extreme of the extreme Chabad messianists, has launched a campaign with some as-yet-unnamed US Chabad rabbis. Stewards and Stewardesses will visit bars in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem tonight, offering free drinks to patrons who will come with them to hear a presentation on the "Rebbe King Messiah May He Live Forever And Ever" from some US Chabad rabbis. All this to celebrate the Rebbe's 13th yartzeit Tuesday – a yartzeit Zimroni and others do not observe because they believe the Rebbe did not pass away.

Official Chabad condemns this bizarre, cult-like program and, in truth, I know that Zimroni is despised by most of Chabad – even by open Chabad messianists.

In 1994 at a massive anti-terror rally in Jerusalem. Zimroni and his cohorts passed out thousands of full color glossy newspapers with the headline, "Long Live Our Master, Our Teacher, Our CREATOR, The King Messiah Forever And Ever!" I spent most of that rally going to NRP leaders from the Old City, telling them this was not Chabad's policy and recruiting them to gather up and destroy as many of these newspapers as possible. Even local Chabad messianists helped gather and destroy them.

So I find it hard to blame Chabad for anything Zimroni does.

That being said, this quote from Chabad's official spokesman, Rabbi Menachem Brod, is very disturbing:

Asked if he believed that Schneersohn was the Messiah, Brod
answered, "We hope that when the Messiah comes the rebbe will come
also."

But was Schneersohn the Messiah? "Some things are better off being handled by God."

Understand this well – Chabad's official Israeli spokesman still refuses to say the Rebbe was not and is not the messiah.

There is no true anti-messianist arm of Chabad. There are those who believe publicly saying the Rebbe is the messiah is a good thing, something mandated by the Rebbe's teachings. And then there are those who say publicly naming the Rebbe the messiah is a bad thing that violates the Rebbe's wishes. Both sides believe Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the messiah. They argue about tactics and about loyalty to faction leaders.

June 17, 2007

An elder shaliach, 82-year-old Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, founder of Chabad in Australia, has been hospitalized. Rabbi Groner had fluid on his lungs and required surgery to drain that fluid. He is recovering from that surgery and is expected to be released from the hospital this week.

For those in Melbourne, Rabbi Groner is not up to receiving visitors. The family asks all to say tehillim for Yitzchok Dovid ben Menucha Rochel.

June 15, 2007

[This Post Will Stay At The Top Of The Blog For A few Days. Newer Posts Are Immediately Below This Post.]

A 14 1/2 year old girl from a Conservative Jewish home has a school project, of sorts – the requirement to do community service. She volunteers at her local Chabad House and quickly becomes the babysitter for the the rabbi's infant and toddler. Over the years, she spends much time alone in the Chabad House with the rabbi and two tiny children while the rabbi's wife works or is out of town. The girl's parents grow suspicious. They wonder how this type of yihud can be allowed. The rabbi blows them off.

The girl claims to have been raped on a local (non-Chabad) outing not long after she started helping out at Chabad. The parents got her therapy. The girl claimed not to know the boy(s) that raped her. She has been in therapy since then. And there is more to this story that can be told, if necessary.

This girl is an honor student at an exclusive school. She has a large college scholarship waiting for her. Despite her trauma, she seemed to be holding her life together and doing well. But her parents rightly worried about her involvement with Chabad – specifically the yihud issues with the rabbi, rampant underage alcohol use at the weekly kiddushes and special occasions, and less-than-Orthodox behavior of the Lubavitch yeshiva students introduced to her by the rabbi. They warned the rabbi (including written warnings) and asked for change. Yet they reluctantly allowed her to continue contact with Chabad, unable to believe the worst.

The girl's mother is a convert, converted by a Conservative rabbi and later by an Orthodox (but non-Chabad rabbi). The girl was also converted as a young child in this manner.

The Chabad rabbi tells the girl she is not Jewish because she did not reaffirm her conversion when she turned 12. He tells her he will arrange a new conversion. However, she will need to go to Crown Heights and study for two years first. He drills this into her, constantly urging the girl – a minor – to leave for Crown Heights.

At the same time, the rabbi introduces the girl to Lubavitch yeshiva students visiting the area. Over the years the parents find evidence of trysts with these yeshiva students, in once case literally pulling a Lubavitch yeshiva student off their daughter as they lay in her bed, partially clothed and about to cohabit.

A few months ago, the girl, then 17, begins acting erratically. Parents find more evidence of trysts, including four negative pregnancy tests. When confronted the girl tells her parents that "We," i.e., Chabad-Lubavitch, Orthodoxy, "do not use contraception." When pressed the girl claims she has been with an "older" man.

Two weeks before graduation with honors from her exclusive high school, the girl – who had turned 18 two weeks before – fled for Crown Heights without telling her parents. A Chabad boy she met through the rabbi paid for her ticket. The rabbi's sister picked the girl up at the airport and took her to Crown Heights. The rabbi arranged housing for her and found her a job.

The parents have evidence of illegal alcohol and drug use involving their daughter and several Chabad boys, both before and after her flight to Crown Heights.

The parents contacted Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, the titular head of Chabad, first on the 18th of May and then several times thereafter, including more attempts at contact yesterday and today. Rabbi Krinsky has consistently refused to speak with them or answer their emails.

The rabbi exerted undue influence over this girl when she was a minor. He plied her with alcohol, spent many hours alone with her in his home, disregarded her parents' wishes and, it may well be, committed clergy abuse.

This rabbi is a known problem in Chabad. But Chabad – more interested in protecting its image before Tuesday's ceremonies honoring the 13th yartzeit of the Rebbe than it is in this girl's welfare – refuses to deal with the problem.

It is Shabbos now in NYC. I had hoped to post this before Shabbos started, but was unable to. Still, I'm sure word will filter into Crown Heights. So let me get personal.

Rabbi Krinsky, people know about this, more people than you realize, bigger people than you realize. You cannot cover this one up. But you can deal with it. Do the right thing. Withdraw the rabbi in question and keep him away from children and college students. That means keep him out of outreach entirely. Do this any way you see fit but please do it.

Saturday night, Sunday morning at the latest, call up this girl's parents and broker a deal. Get the girl back home. Let her doctor and therapist examine her.

If she wants to reaffirm her conversion after a reasonable amount of time away from Chabad (and I mean away from Chabad) – let her. I think three to six months with no Chabad contact would be about right.

Rabbi Krinsky, do you remember another time when you would not take a phone call? That did not work out very well for you. Thing is, you could have talked your way out of it. Look at the lag time between the publication in Israel and the eventual publication here. Does that look like someone who was, then, "gleefully" running to publish "dirt" about Chabad?

The point is, not everyone with a complaint is out to hurt the organization, but that quickly changes when the organization hurts them. Some people just want their daughter back, safe, and a certain rabbi removed so he cannot hurt others. This does not seem an unreasonable request. I'm sure you can find a way to honor it in full before Monday morning.

How sick is Israel? How sick are Israeli rabbis? Very, very sick. Why?

Ha'aretz reports that 42 Sudanese refugees were found by Israeli Bedouin wandering in Be'er Sheva's industrial area. The Bedouin called aid workers and are housing the refugees over Shabbat. Where will these poor refugees go after Shabbat? Israel's Islamic Movement. That's right, Israel's Islamic Movement will care for them and house them.

What's so bad about that?

The refugees are Christians who fled Muslim persecution in Southern Sudan and Egypt.

…Approximately 1000 refugees from Africa have infiltrated into Israel since the beginning of 2007, of which about 750 are from Sudan. The rest are from states such as Eritrea and the Ivory Coast.

The IDF catches many of the refugees upon their entry into Israel and, with no fixed solution to the problem of their status or governmental body set to deal with them, regularly releases them from detention to fend for themselves in Be'er Sheva.

June 14, 2007

Wanted haredi pedophile Stefan Colemar has been arrested in Jerusalem and now faces extradition to the US, UOJ reports:

Stefan Colmer was arrested in Israel today (June 14) on a provisional arrest warrant. He is now in custody awaiting an official extradition request from the U.S. government seeking his return to Brooklyn to stand trial on child sex abuse charges, for which he has already been indicted.

Former [Sefardic] Chief Rabbi Bakshi Doron fires in all directions in an interview with the publication of the " Movement for Realistic Religious Zionism". Rabbi Doron comes out against Rabbanut marriage laws, dual positions for Sephardi and Ashlenazi Chief Rabbis and attacks National Religious party workers. He also claims that there is corruption in the religious councils.

He claims that marriage and divorce laws are not effective and lead to a hatred of Judaism. He claims that the thought that religious marriage laws prevent assimilation is an illusion. " The reality is that non-religious Jews who want to marry a non Jew ignore and by pass the law. To our dismay this law is one of the reasons for the claims of religious coercion. There is a large portion of the public that wants to get married and feels that this law stands in its way and they are correct".

As someone who sat in the Beit Din of the Rabbanut Rabbi Doron states that it is precisely this law that increases the number of mamzeirim in Israel. None of the Kibutznikim accept Jewish law in any event and it is this law that requires them to get married. A woman who has not married under Jewish law is still Jewish and her children are Jewish. Although this is not a good situation it is better than forcing her to be in a position of committing adultery and then she and her children are forbidden to marry. There is more than one or two such cases.

In summary Rabbi Doron claims that in the past this law helped preserve Judaism but now it forces people away from Judaism. People see that we need to preserve Judaism through political power and this is sad. No one forces anyone to have a Brit Milah yet in almost all cases it is done.

Rabbi Doron also comes out against dual positions for Sephardi and Ashkenazi Rabbis. This was a mistake right from the beginning he says. This duality is relevant only in the case of Rabbis of synagogues who lead a specific community and is not relevant for Cities or neighborhoods.

Regarding religious councils he states that everything is political and is based on the political power in a particular city. This has resulted in extensive corruption. He claims that 90% of the funding going to religious councils is being used to cover past debts and blames the National Religious party as well as Shas for this situation. The government provides sufficient funding to the religious councils but 80% goes to the political hacks of the National Religious party and Shas.

There are dozens of comments by readers to this article. Many express their thanks for his being so open and honest.

A recent op-ed piece in The Jewish Press caught my eye. Called “Time to Give Chabad Its Due,” written by Rabbi Sholom Kalmanson of Cincinnati, it is, in part, a response to a recent Jewish Press article by Rabbi Meir Goldberg which stated that “Kiruv in its early stages was performed mostly by the Torah Umesorah day school movement and NCSY, with their emphasis on reaching children and teens. Eventually, they were joined by Chabad…” Rabbi Kalmanson sincerely believes that Chabad has been slighted, going on to complain that “I can’t even count the number of times I’ve seen an article in which this or that organization claims to be the “first and oldest outreach organization,” and in which Chabad’s pioneering activity is slighted, if it’s mentioned at all.” …

The Jewish Week has piece defending Chabad's "chief rabbi" of Russia Berel Lazar from charges that he is little more than Russian strongman Vladimir Putin's poodle. In it, a host of Jewish leaders from many different factions say, in effect, that while democracy would be nice, Putin's strong arm tactics and thuggish leadership is good, because Putin is 'good for the Jews.'

The article makes no mention of the pro-democracy Jewish leaders who have been forced to flee Russia, and it makes no mention of Putin opponents who now languish in jail or who were murdered.

It also mouths exactly the line given me by a Chabad shaliach last week.

Not one Russia-based or exiled Putin opponent is quoted. But Berel Lazar is:

Rabbi Lazar, who was named chief rabbi by Putin in 2000 and who meets one-on-one with the Russian president three or four times a year, said he is not overly concerned by what he termed “extreme rhetoric” used by Putin against the U.S. in recent weeks. He argued that Putin’s shrill speeches should be seen in the context of U.S. policies which, the rabbi said, “failed to pay enough attention to Russian pride.”…

Asked whether democracy is necessary for healthy Jewish life, Rabbi Lazar responded, “Democracy has no relevance to the work of the organized Jewish community…

One lone dissenting voice, that of an American, is cited:

…Mark Levin, executive vice president of the Washington-based NCSJ, said he heard similar defenses of Putin and his policies from unnamed Russian Jewish leaders during a visit to Moscow last month.

Nevertheless, Levin noted, many of the same leaders were not displeased that he and other members of the NCSJ delegation raised concerns about the erosion of democracy during meetings with high Russian government officials.

“The Jewish leaders said to us, ‘You can raise issues that we can’t,’” Levin said…

The erosion of democracy in the FSU is due in part to the US's distraction with Iraq. But the Bush Administration was also swayed by strong Jewish support for Putin, support led from Putin's first day in power by Berel Lazar.

Putin recently compared the US to Nazi Germany. He has killed, jailed or exiled most of the opposition and cracked down on religions other than the Orthodox Church. But Putin is "good for the Jews," as one Chabad shaliach recently told me, and that is enough.

But is it enough? I do not think so. I think a time will come, perhaps very soon, when that will become clear, even to court Jews like Berel Lazar.

The fight for control of the haredi world's premier yeshiva has intensified, Ynet reports:

In recent years, the renowned Lithuanian Ponevezh yeshiva in Beni Brak has been engulfed in a violent struggle between two rival factions over who will control the institution. The conflict began after the yeshiva’s legendary head, Rabbi Elazar Shach, became ill in the late 1990s and had to be replaced.

Two camps immediately emerged as contenders for the throne: The first led by Rabbi Beryl Poversky and Rabbi Gershon Edelshtein (the heir-to-be of 95-year-old Rabbi Elyashiv), and the second headed by Rabbi Shmuel Markovich.

In the most recent incident related to the power struggle, the yeshiva’s administrative director, Aharon Gertner, was arrested Wednesday after police claimed he attempted to assualt menbers of Rabbi Markovich’s faction with an ax.…

Two years ago, after several years of truce, the status quo between the rivals was violated after the Edelshtein-Povarsky camp appointed Rabbi Haim Peretz Berman as the new yeshiva head. Immediately following the appointment, the rabbi was assaulted with sticks and hospitalized. Berman was replaced by Rabbi Haim Shlomo Lebovic, whose first lecture was held under heavy security of dozens of policemen. Upon returning home that day, he found an explosive device waiting for him at his doorstep.

The police believe that the war is far from over, as its resolution depends on one of the sides finally withdrawing from the contest over control. Meanwhile, the district police chief summons the yeshiva’s leaders to his office once every few weeks for a talk, which is usually followed by a short-lived truce that ends whenever a new conflict – over the distribution of food or rooms in the yeshiva for instance – emerges.

Many of the top Jewish criminals of the last century – Arnold Rothstein, Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, many Murder Inc. hitmen, etc. – came from very "frum" families. (Guzik himself used to put on tefillin every day.)

I used to think their criminal behavior was caused in large part by poverty and dislocation, the refugee-immigrant experience gone bad. Yet, as I've learned more about historical haredi mob violence, my view has changed.

There were murders over succession in hasidic courts and mob violence used to for rabbis to rule stringently. (My favorite story in this regard is the attack on the av bet din of Brody and his family over a disagreement regarding the use of machine-ground flour for Passover matza. Haredi thugs threw bricks through the [closed] windows of his home while he and his entire family, including young children, were asleep inside. This happened in the 1870s. The mob was upset by the rabbi's halakhic leniency.)

I think haredi society itself is at fault. The proof is the rampant welfare fraud, tax fraud, white collar crime, and mob violence in haredi communities. Power struggles are not settled in bet din – they are settled on the streets, with clubs and pipe bombs or by secular courts and law enforcement.

Murder Inc. came from somewhere, and that place is just as much Ponevezh, Brody, Lubavitch and Kapust as it is the old Lower East Side.

…In his writings and discussions on the subject, the
Rebbe rejected all theological explanations for the Holocaust. What greater
conceit -- the Rebbe would say -- and what greater heartlessness, can there be
than to give a "reason" for the death and torture of millions of
innocent men, women and children? Can we presume to assume that an explanation
small enough to fit inside the finite bounds of human reason can explain a horror
of such magnitude? We can only concede that there are things that
lie beyond the finite ken of the human mind. Echoing his father-in-law, the
Rebbe would say: It is not my task to justify G-d on this. Only G-d Himself can
answer for what He allowed to happen. And the only answer we will accept, said
the Rebbe, is the immediate and complete Redemption that will forever banish
evil from the face of the earth and bring to light the intrinsic goodness and
perfection of G-d's creation.…

Case 1: An older Chabad rabbinical student molests a younger, teenage Chabad yeshiva student. The older student has a position of authority, the younger does not. When the abuse becomes known, the older student gets therapy and is pronounced "cured." He marries and is given a position of responsibility in Chabad – teaching teenage boys.

Case 2: A Crown Heights rabbi molests a twelve year old yeshiva student and allegedly has continued to molest others. He still has his position of authority and free unsupervised access to teenage boys.

Case 3: A Chabad rabbinical student anally rapes a younger yeshiva student. He allegedly goes on to anally rape others, mostly in California. This man now lives in Israel and is part of a Chabad community there. No action has been taken against him by Chabad.

None of these molesters were turned over to the police. Some victims did get counseling, although it does not seem that Chabad paid for this. Other victims, many others, it seems, have never received help.

What should be done about this?

I should add I have now been told of other cases. This saddens me greatly. For the past year and a half, I clung to the idea that, at least when it came to molestation and coverups of it, Chabad was better behaved than the rest. I told this to several shluchim and to others. But I was wrong, it is not so.

June 13, 2007

…[Palestinians] elected Hamas' terror government to lead them. They
did it in democratic elections, out of their own free will, with clear
minds and clear intentions. They allow Qassam launchers to fire from
their backyards and they allow the producers of explosive belts to
produce them in apartments at their buildings. In their schools they educate their children to hate us to
death. Day and night they repeatedly tell them that Jews are the
enemies of mankind, pigs and monkeys who poison wells, and therefore
Israel must be exterminated. They also refer to their sons, the suicide
bombers who blow up at the heart of civilian populations, as saints.

I'm certain that there are different people among them who
wish to live in peace. I wouldn't want them to be hurt. I propose that
they move to a different apartment, far away. Yet in any case, when the
time comes to choose between the lives of Sderot children and the lives
of innocents-or-not-so-innocent people in Gaza, I choose the lives of
the former.…

June 12, 2007

…I am in contact with the law firm who has collected in excess of two hundred million dollars from the various Catholic churches and archdioceses that were found guilty of harboring molesters.This is what they uncovered so far.

2- "Leopold" Margulies started moving millions of dollars of assets around at the end of last year.

3- The law firm is VERY CERTAIN that if there are twenty bona fide witnesses,they can obtain a judgment against the above named entities, and wrestle away ALL the assets of the above named people and entities.

4- The juries have awarded damages, depending on the circumstances, from $500,000-$5,000,000, read five million dollars per victim.

5- In order for this firm to take this case the following has to happen:

a- I must give them a $100,000 retainer, which will be reimbursed to me after they collect on the judgment. This reimbursement would come from the "law firm's" proceeds, not from the victims'.

b- I am willing to do that out of my personal funds. I DO NOT want money from anyone!

c- The law firm's share would be one third of whatever they collect, the rest is going to be distributed in it's entirety to the victims.

d- They will NOT take the case until they have interviewed at the very least TWENTY victims, and are convinced of the credibility of the individuals.

e- I'm sure you are aware that everything you divulge to the attorneys would be protected under the attorney-client privilege.

The following must now happen in order for me to proceed. I must be contacted by e-mail by at the very least twenty five people that are willing to testify in court. ALL REPLIES WILL BE HELD IN THE STRICTEST CONFIDENCE.…

Many years after most civilized countries passed laws meant to aid the disabled and to make public building and multi-family dwellings like apartment buildings accessible, Israel has finally begun to do so:

…For the past six months the amendments' wording has been discussed at the Interior Ministry, and a ministry spokesperson says it "requires the approval of the Knesset Labor, Welfare and Health Committee, and must be published in the regulations file."

"We expect the regulations to be approved by the end of the year," says Yuval Wagner, chairman of Access Israel, a non-profit organization that promotes awareness on this subject. In the meantime, amendments have been inserted into the planning and building law, requiring that changes be made to existing public buildings, with particular attention paid to wheelchair access in new buildings. There is also a section on access to public buildings in the Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law of 2005.…

This is after years of pressure from activists including violinist Isaac Stern. Try to walk with a wheelchair-bound person in Jerusalem. You'll quickly see how difficult this is. Try to go shopping or visit a restaurant. Many stores and food establishments are inaccessible. Bathrooms? Few are accessible.

As it now stands, building after building after building is built inaccessible. Few Israelis seem to care. That includes rabbis, by the way, who seem to be able to spout off on many diverse issues – showing kindness to the disabled is not one of those issues, however.

June 11, 2007

This one involving an 11 year old boy molested at Camp Gan Israel in Montreal 25 years ago. His alleged abuser, a camp waiter (a position given to yeshiva students) went on to anally rape boys at knife point in Long Beach, California. The alleged rapist abuser now lives in Betar, Israel.

I will just note two things:

One of the abusers mentioned in the earlier post is still teaching in a Chabad yeshiva in Montreal. Chabad contacts, including well-placed rabbis, tell me this man is "cured." I told them "cured" or not, he still cannot be left alone around children and cannot be a teacher or in a position of authority over children or young adults.

Both abuse cases happened when the late Rebbe was both alive and well, fully in control of the Chabad movement. None of the abusers in question were turned over to the police. None were removed from teaching or unsupervised contact with children. Two have continued to abuse. One, the one that is "cured" may have stopped – but this is unclear, because there is at least one more recent allegation against him.

I hesitate to use these incidents to attack the Rebbe. But one must wonder why the Rebbe allowed these men to remain in Jewish education and in unsupervised contact with youth. Further, these men were never turned over to police and have no criminal records. For all anyone knows, these men may be abusing non-Jewish children – or, in the case of this particular abuser, he may be abusing Israeli or Palestinian children.

The ultra-Orthodox rabbinical court, Haredi Badatz [Yerushalyim], placed a "curse" Sunday on the participants in the upcoming Gay Pride parade scheduled to take place next week in Jerusalem.

The court also cursed the police officers who will be maintaining order during the parade.

Badatz rabbis plastered warning posters on Jerusalem city walls saying "All those involved in the matter, those of impure souls and those helping them and guarding them, they will feel in their souls a curse, a bad spirit will come over them and haunt them, they will never be cleansed of their sins, from the judgment of God, in their bodies, their souls and their finances."…

Why is it we do not see similar posters from Badatz Yerushalyim attacking those who steal from non-haredim or the government, cheat on their taxes, or cover for any of this? And why is it these 'holy men' think curses will help?

Why pick on one sin, a sin that is deeply rooted and may have a genetic cause, and ignore other sins – even sins called "abomination" by the Torah – that are less deeply rooted and lack a genetic component?

I think the reason is twofold. First, rabbis are conflicted about sex. They view it through the twisted lens of 16th and 17th century kabbalah, spread first by Shabbatai Tsvi and then by the Ba'al Shem Tov and his followers and drawn heavily from non-Jewish asceticism of surrounding Middle East cultures, rather than viewing sex through the lens of the Torah itself. And because they know next to nothing about the earlier Jewish theologies that preceded kabbalah, they err.

Secondly, I think many of these men are homophobic. Rather than empathy and compassion, they have hatred.

In his op-ed in Haaretz on June 1 ("God as surgeon"), Prof. Yehuda Bauer refers to the opinion of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe regarding the Holocaust.

Without responding to his unwarranted, unacademic, personal attacks against the Rebbe, I think that Bauer gravely misunderstood the nuances and delicate concepts that the Rebbe was conveying in his 1980 letter to Knesset member Chaika Grossman.

The letter to the late MK Grossman was written to an individual whom the Rebbe surely understood to be in a position to correctly understand its contents without more explanation. I am sure that Prof. Bauer, too, writes in one language when corresponding with colleagues and in another when writing for the general public. Nothing in the letter to Grossman contradicts anything the Rebbe said before or after; anything said before or after simply expounds upon and clarifies the concepts written in that letter in a relatively condensed manner. The quoted letter is published in "Likutei Sichot" (Vol. 21, page 397). I would suggest that any serious student of this issue study that letter in its entirety and original before forming any opinion.

Following, however, are some of my personal insights into the matter:

In the letter, the Rebbe was responding to MK Grossman's published questions regarding the Rebbe's published views.

The Rebbe first expresses his astonishment at the fact that she based her criticism on an unedited version of the Rebbe's talks, which was subject to slight misquotes or lacking adequate context, and admonished her for publishing criticism without first checking with him what he meant to say.

The Rebbe then establishes in no uncertain terms who the "good guys" and who the "bad guys" are. When referring to those who perished in the Holocaust, we say "Hashem yikom damam" - meaning "may God avenge their blood." We refer to them as kedoshim, holy individuals. When referring to Hitler and his like, we always add the epithet "yemach shmo," that is, "may his name be obliterated." The Rebbe then goes into a lengthy, detailed explanation of his view, addressing the issues at hand point by point in a detailed albeit condensed way.

Prof. Bauer quotes the Rebbe as saying that "Hitler was a messenger of God in the same sense that Nebuchadnezzar is called 'God's servant' in the Book of Jeremiah (Chapter 25)." How do you, Prof. Bauer, explain Jeremiah's reference to Nebuchadnezzar?

The Rebbe, with this quote, simply draws attention to the biblical precedent seeing in each and every event the hand of God, however inexplicable to the human mind or painful to the human heart. Bear in mind that Nebuchadnezzar was not rewarded, but punished, for what he did.

In his letter, the Rebbe points out both a similarity as well as a distinction between Nebuchadnezzar and Hitler. Whereas the massacres in Jeremiah's times are understood to be a punishment, the Rebbe insists that the Holocaust cannot be understood in this way. The comparison with Nebuchadnezzar was merely intended to make the point out everything that happens in this world is part of God's design, however incomprehensible it might be to the mortal mind.

Here we find yet another example of the inaccuracies appearing in Prof. Bauer's article. He writes: "The Rebbe's stance, therefore, is clear: The Holocaust was a good thing because it lopped off a disease-ravaged limb of the Jewish people - in other words, the millions who perished in the Holocaust - in order to cleanse the Jewish people of its sins. The 'surgery' he spoke of was such a massive corrective procedure that the suffering (i.e., the murder of the Jews) was minor compared to its curative effect."

This is a gross misinterpretation. Prof. Bauer misunderstood the comparison to surgery. Careful reading of the letter will show that the example of surgery is brought only in order to illustrate how something as horrible as an amputation, although beneficial, can seem criminal to the uninitiated. It is by no means brought in order to imply that those that perished were "amputated" for the benefit of the survivors.

The Rebbe clearly writes that although we have no understanding as to why the Holocaust had to happen, we do believe that it is for the benefit primarily of those that perished (not merely for the benefit of the survivors). The Rebbe does not attempt to explain what the benefit is; he simply asserts that it must be for the (eventual?) benefit of those who perished (especially taking into account our belief in resurrection and the world-to-come).

The Rebbe points out that even when the one going through the surgery knows that it is for his benefit, he still cries out in pain, as do those nearest and dearest to him. It is perfectly normal and theologically acceptable for a believing Jew to cry out in pain and clamor to God for mercy, when suffering or when witnessing the suffering of others.

These are just a few examples of how slight inaccuracies in quotes and context can generate conclusions totally contrary to those intended. One must be more careful when quoting our sages and their words and make sure that it is done accurately before taking issue with them.

There are several schools of thought in classical Judaism about why bad things â mega bad things â happen to the Jewish people. Most are predicated on God's involvement in the bad, and explain that by saying we do not truly understand the 'evil.' If we could view it from God's perspective, the reasoning goes, we would only see good.

A favorite example given is the operating theater. Imagine waling into a gallery overlooking an operating room. There behind the glass is are people dressed in white cutting off a man's leg. You have never seen surgery. You do not even realize there is a medical treatment called surgery. What do you think when you see the 'horror' below you? You scream, you try to get the 'butchers' to stop mutilating the man. But, in truth, what these men are doing is saving the life of that patient.

The problem here is not with the Rebbe's analogy or Professor Bauer's understanding (or lack there of) of it. The problem is the Rebbe made statement's without carefully thinking about how they would be viewed by people who are not steeped in the particular theology espoused by him. A more current example of this lack of forethought comes from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef who, not so long ago used the explanation of the Ari for the Destruction of the Second Temple and the deaths that surrounded it to explain the Holocaust. Rabbi Yosef's remarks were met with a similar firestorm of disapproval.

I wrote a piece for the American Jewish World explaining â but not necessarily endorsing â Rabbi Yosef's position. That piece was in response to a piece similar to Professor Bauer's, this one written by an old friend, Holocaust scholar Stephen Feinstein. I recall Rabbi Moshe Feller, the head Chabad rabbi in the upper Midwest, being very pleased with that piece and hoping the JTA would pick it up. (The JTA did not.)

My piece didn't change Stephen Feinstein's mind, largely because the fine distinctions needed to make these types of analogies work â in this case, the amputated limb is not itself bad, per se â are difficult to accept for those who do not buy into this line of reasoning to begin with.

Going back to the example of the Ari, he was explaining the Destruction of the Second Temple 1500 years after it happened. But what he was really doing without expressly saying so was explaining the Expulsion from Spain less than 100 years after that tragic event, roughly the same distance between it and the Ari's generation as the Holocaust and ours.

The Rebbe would say after this experience that it is wrong to explain or justify the Holocaust. It is simply too close, to raw, and no explanation will be accepted.

I would say that a God who needs to treat an illness by roasting alive hundreds of thousands of Jewish babies is not much of a God. The Rebbe, I think, would reply that an illness that requires the roasting of those babies as treatment must be a horrible, horrible illness.

In essence, this is exactly what is happening today between Professor Bauer and Rabbi Shemtov.

The Rebbe's explanation requires belief in a perfect, kind and just God who does no evil. To accept that requires accepting unspeakable horrors as good, divinely mandated and endorsed. For most people, even believing people, this is very difficult to do.

The Rebbe's words cut like jagged-edged swords. They were widely publicized and hurt many, many people, especially survivors.

The Rebbe meant no harm, but harm was done, nonetheless.

Professor Bauer's words are not "unwarranted, unacademic, personal attacks against the Rebbe." They are words of a survivor, a man who saw unspeakable horrors and spent his life documenting them so the world would not be able to forget, not be able to sweep a few million butchered Jews under the rug.

What Chabad should do is admit the Rebbe's error, his lapse of judgment, and then move on. But Chabad will not do this because it will never admit that its rebbes were anything less than perfect.

June 07, 2007

I was fifteen. He, the older mashpia-bochur - me, the young naive
lesser religious, grossly convincing me as my mashpia not to run after
chix and to study with him and become really really close to the
rebbe…he did this b’tur mashpia mitam hayeshiva. He was 20.

The other rabbi, Rabbi Dovid Wakser of Crown Heights did it first
when i was 12 1/2. I am forgoing here a fifty thousand dollar
settlement since he is still molesting teenagers- as I saw the young
ones when I came to pick up the check.

I made a mistake, since in both cases they are in situations where they are still hurting others.

I can’t press charges, since I signed a settlement that prevents me
from doing so. I am now forgoing that settlement- in the amount of 40
thousand dollars.

I don’t want money. I want them exposed.

One more thing: I will not remove this post when phone calls are made for exchange of cash.

Here is a piece by Matthew Wagner from today's Jerusalem Post. Wagner reports Rabbi Dov Lior, the rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba and a leader of the National Religious right wing has ruled that Israel should not aid Darfur refugees who have found their way to Israel. (Rabbi Lior earlier ruled that these poor people should be stopped at the borders and pushed back into the Sinai wilderness.)

His ruling was echoed by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of the Ateret Yerushalayim yeshiva and another leader of National Religious Jews. Efraim Zuroff, also an Orthodox Jew, of the Simon Wiesenethal Center's Israel office also agrees.

First, Rabbi Lior:

Israel has no moral responsibility to aid Darfur refugees, and their
plight must not be compared to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Chief
Rabbi of Hebron-Kiryat Arba Dov Lior said on Wednesday.

He was responding to a query on the "Yeshiva" Internet forum.

Lior's questioner said Israel was obligated to help Sudanese refugees
who reached its borders just as the nations of the world were morally
responsible to help Jews suffering under Nazi Germany.

But Lior disagreed: "The Holocaust is not a good example [of a general
moral obligation that can be compared to Israel's obligation to Darfur
refugees]," he said. "During the Holocaust, Jews were hunted. The
Germans wanted to destroy all the Jews wherever they were. The Swiss
who saved the Jews [sic] knew that someone was hunting them down and
wanted to murder them.

"We have enough problems of our own with immigration absorption. We
need to take care of our own 'Sderot refugees' and we do not have
budget reserves. We have enough poor people in Israel. There are plenty
of nations that can help those refugees besides us.

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of the Ateret Yerushalayim yeshiva, said Jewish law obliged Jews to treat all human beings with loving kindness.

"We have to do it not because of the Holocaust but because God commanded to treat all of His creations, especially those created in His image, with loving kindness.

"We don't do it for the publicity or to look good in the eyes of the goyim. Jews have done acts of loving kindness in the past even when they were paid back with hatred," Aviner said.

However, he also said our own poor and homeless, including Israelis "expelled" from the Gaza Strip, came first. "We are a country of refugees," said Aviner. "We simply do not have the resources."

Now Efraim Zuroff:

Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Jerusalem office, agreed with Lior that comparing the plight of Jews during the Holocaust to that of Sudanese refugees was inaccurate.

"Sudanese who managed to reach Israel had already escaped ethnic cleansing by entering Egypt from Sudan," he said. "The move to Israel was an attempt to find a better haven.

"Obviously, as Jews who were victims of genocide, we have a special duty to help stop the ethnic cleansing inside Sudan. But at the same time, Israel has limited resources. We cannot possibly help all Sudanese refugees," he said.

The case being discussed here are refugees who walked across the the Sinai and illegally crossed into Israel seeking shelter. They are victims of genocide who fled to Egypt, were persecuted there, some were sent back to Darfur by Egyptian authorities, and others fled to Israel.

To say, as Rabbi Lior does, that the "poor of one's own country take precedence over other people's poor" is disingenuous. That halakha is talking about sending money or aid to another city or country. Then, all things being equal, the poor of your own town or family come first. But, if the poor in another country are starving to death, and yours merely skip one or two meals per week, or eat less choice foods for the Sabbath, the halakha mandates aiding the poor starving to death in that other country.

So what are Rabbis Lior and Aviner really saying? They are saying this – Darfur refugees are not Jews. The halakha quoted is talking about helping Jews. The implication here is clear. Darfur refugees do not deserve our help because they are not Jewish.

But the truth is, once these poor people get to us, they are our poor, and they must be aided just like any other poor person in Israel. That is the halakha. (Some of you may recall biblical verses about how to treat strangers, verses that also say, "…because you were once strangers in Egypt.")

So what we have here is two prominent right wing National Religious rabbis with huge followings. Both misrepresent the halakha, it seems for political reasons.

These rabbis are concerned about aiding settlers who refused to leave Gaza, lost much of their benefits as a result, and now suffer – all because they listened to these very same National Religious rabbis (and others, as well) who ordered them to remain in Gaza.

As for the Sederot refugees, aiding them is not a matter of a shortage in funds – it is a matter of s shortage in political will.

As for Zuroff, he is right and he is wrong. Yes, the parallel is not exact. But he raises a straw man rather than deal with the actual situation. No one is talking about taking in all or most of Darfur refugees. We are dealing with a few hundred people, not millions, and the state – and, just as importantly, the Israeli private sector – has more than enough money to help these people.

The saddest thing of all here is noting Rabbi Lior's background:

…During the Holocaust, Lior himself was a refugee. He and his family
were expelled from Poland and wandered through the Soviet Union. Both
his parents died of starvation.

Lior is one of the most respected and influential religious Zionist
rabbis in more right-wing circles. Many of his students hold key
positions in national religious high schools and he is the spiritual
authority for the Ariel Youth Movement.…

What did God spare Rabbi Lior for? To repeat the mistakes and evil of his parent's oppressors?

I will say one very controversial thing about this sad affair. Scholars study the formation of the Hitler Youth. They seek to answer, in part, a fundamental question: How could an entire generation of children be, for want of a better term, brainwashed? How could Hitler, yemach shemo, have 'cloned' so many little Hitlers?

Perhaps we should study the Ariel Youth Movement and its members. By this I do not mean to equate Rabbi Lior with Hitler or his movement with Hitler youth. But I do see parallels between Rabbi Lior's history of racism, and his teaching of this racism to youth, and what happened in Germany.

This is a very sad day for Judaism, and an even sadder day, I'm afraid, for God.

And, yes, I do see parallels with the late Lubavitcher Rebbe's position on (not) aiding Ethiopian Jews, where he also cites din kadima (the poor of your own town come first) as a reason to not help save starving, tortured Ethiopian Jews.

The LA Daily News profiles former Protocols blogger Luke Ford. The profile deals with his work covering the porn industry, breaking the HIV story that shut it down for a time, and his mistreatment by several rabbis, who banned him from their congregations because of the his work covering porn. (These same rabbis do not ban those who are known to cheat on their taxes, steal, financially abuse employees or commit other non-violent crimes. I wonder why?)

In the profile, Luke is credited with pioneering blogging, breaking the HIV story, breaking a story about Mafia involvement in the porn industry, and breaking a story about Internet credit card scams and porn.

Stories Luke also broke – on his non-porn blog – include the Rabbi Aron Tendler sex abuse scandal and other rabbinic sex abuse-related stories. The Daily News doesn't mention these, however, because its focus is on the porn industry.

As Yannick Kamanan, Maccabi Herzliya’s black striker, steps out on to the field at Bloomfield Stadium, he appears very tense. The French soccer player had a great season, but now the game is the least of his concerns.

Nothing had prepared him for the horrible treatment he endured at the hands of rival team Maccabi Tel Aviv’s fans.

“Racist chants would greet me from the direction of the Maccabi stands each time I touched the ball,” Kamanan painfully recalls. “At first, I tried not to pay attention to it. But after a few minutes, it was apparently too much for me, and I broke down.

“I said to myself: ‘I can’t believe that my skin is a problem in this world.’ We all come from the same source. You can be white; you can be yellow; you can be any color. But at the end of the day, we came from the same place. We’re all Adam and Eve’s descendents.

“I think that it’s simply terrible that skin is a problem,” he observes bitterly.

Racist Israeli soccer fans are nothing new. For example, in the early 1990s, Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Cameroon-native Cyril Makanaky would routinely be taunted by other teams’ fans. However, most players never dared complain.

But Kamanan decided that the time had come to take a stand. “I knew that if I didn’t speak up, no one would speak up. I couldn’t understand how specifically in Israel, a country where millions of its sons were murdered because they were Jewish, these kinds of things could happen.”…

“It mostly affected me because it happened in Israel. Jews died because of their appearances during the Holocaust. After all, almost every family here had some sort of distant relative that died during the Holocaust, and that’s what I don’t understand.

“How can you make these noises after all you went through? In Europe, it’s different, because there, they don’t have your history. I couldn’t understand how people here don’t respect other people because of their skin color.

“I would like to think that these things will never happen again, but I know that’s not how it’ll be.”…

“To be honest, nothing will change. After all, despite the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans’ apologies, the following week, they played against Hakoah Ramat Gan, where my friend Pappy Kimoto plays. He’s also black, and there were racist chants against him on the field as well.…

“I went to Yad Vashem in order to get to know your state better and to honor your history, what you went through. I placed flowers. If just like I tried to understand you, you would stand in my shoes, you would better understand what it feels like to be a black player here.”

This is the same racism Ethiopian Jews undergo every day. Why does it happen? In Israel, of all places? I want your opinions.

As for me, I think the Ashkenazi attitude of superiority and their mistreatment of Sefardim that grew from that attitude, is the root cause of this racism.

We see this unease with dark skinned Jews in America, as well. Whether it is an Orthodox American university professor (with close ties to Chabad), or the late head of Agudah Moshe Sherer (and also this link), or the late Lubavitcher Rebbe (who, to his credit, was close to and supportive of Sefardim), looking down on darker Jews is the norm. (An exception to this rule was Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. Another was Rabbi Aron Soleveitchik.)

Yes, that's right – Chabad's very own oiigarch, diamond and property magnate Lev Leviev is the richest man in Israel. Leviev owns Aftrica-Israel Corporation, and his net worth is said to be more than 6 billion dollars. Leviev – a native of the Former Soviet Union – funds much of Chabad's activities there.

But I do not think it is altruism alone that prompts Leviev's largesse. Leviev uses those donations to get certain things from both Chabad and Valdimir Putin, in particular, acess to ceertain natural resources Leviev trades in.

I don't track Leviev closely, so I may be wrong here, but it seems to me that a man, an Israeli, with 6 billion dollars might have the money to significantly help poor people in Israel. Yet I don't see his name attached to much giving there, and no real dent has been made in the poverty that plagues so many Israelis. Might this be because Israel does not have any diamonds to mine?

If you have information to prove my suspicions wrong, please post it in the comments. But please make sure to cite your sources, linking to them whenever possible, so we can check them out. Thank you.

June 05, 2007

How much of a shill for neo-Stalinist thug Vladimir Putin is Chabad's "chief rabbi" of Russia, Berel Lazar? Well, today President Bush gave a much anticipated speech sharply critical of Putin's Stalinist policies and his disregard for human rights and freedom. Interfax, the "news agency" that shills for Putin, conveniently reported this story today:

Russia's Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar told President Putin about a plan to set up a Russian Jewish museum, a Museum of Tolerance.

The head of the state has promised to give this initiative not only moral but also financial support, from his personal funds at that.

'For a few years we have discussed the establishment of a Russian Jewish museum, a Museum of Tolerance. Now the need has become ripe. The aim of this museum is to educate the younger generation for tolerance and respect for one another", Rabbi Lazar said.

The chief rabbi stressed that the situation in the area of inter-ethnic and interreligious relations in Russia is good today. "Whenever I speak in the West, I always say here is an example of how it is possible to live in peace with other religions", he said.

"This is a good idea", Putin replied, "I promise to transfer my monthly salary to the fund for building this museum".

"Many will wish to support such a project", the president said, "as it is aimed to help all the confessions to live in peace and accord, and this is exactly a strength of our multinational and multiconfessional country".

Never mind that the Simon Wiesenthal Center's museum has for many years been called the Museum of Tolerance. Here is another example of Chabad and Lazar providing cover for Putin and his regime.

This must cease. If Chabad cannot find a way to remove Lazar, then we all must find ways to remove Chabad wherever they are from the Jewish community dole. Cut them off, no matter how nice. Cut them off even if they claim to be opposed to Lazar.

Either do it or be responsible for the great evil that will soon come from Moscow.

Satmar has apparently banned the consumption of strawberries due to insect infestation. The problem? Rabbis had to do tests to determine whether the insects, to small to be seen easily with the naked eye (actually, too small to be seen at all with the naked eye) were in the berries.

Remember, the original halakaha was made at a time when there were no optics – no eye glasses, laser surgery, microscopes or magnification. There were no micro filters, either.

Using the standards of even a few years ago, these berries are perfectly kosher.

The OU and CRC-Chicago have cleaning/checking procedures for strawberries. Basically, you cut off the green leafy stem, wash in soapy water, allow to rest for a few minutes in that soapy water, rinse well and eat. And even this is a humra compared to what Jews have done for thousands of years.

The JTA has a piece about the fight between Chabad and the Lithuanian Jewish community. It seems the Chabad rabbi, Sholom Ber Krinsky (the nephew of the head of Chabad, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky) is near eviction and has little support from Chabad's leaders. Rabbi Krinsky has tried to circumvent the country's restoration process, accused the Joint Distribution Committee of scheming against him, had thugs beat up the Lithuanian chief rabbi, and has done other troublesome things:

…The plan is that once a restitution law is passed, neither the properties nor the cash will be apportioned. Jewish religious, cultural, educational and welfare organizations will have to apply to a foundation, proposing projects and making their case for support.

Krinsky will have to compete with the others.

"I've said repeatedly that I think Chabad would merit support, just as other institutions would," said Rabbi Andrew Baker of the American Jewish Committee, who leads the international team negotiating restitution with the Lithuanian government. "However, I don't think that's what Rabbi Krinsky is speaking of. He believes he's the only bona fide religious Jewish organization in Lithuania."

Krinsky has tried to circumvent the process. Several months ago he approached the Lithuanian Ministry of Health requesting the return of a former communal property. But he was rebuffed.

As a U.S. citizen, he approached the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius for help in obtaining a state-owned music academy in the desirable Old Town. According to the U.S. official familiar with the situation, the embassy sent a letter to the government supporting Krinsky, but also asked Krinsky and local leaders to bury the hatchet.

"We've seen a lot of quotes in the press where some people from the government or on its periphery have said the Jewish community can't even agree on restitution, so how can we make an agreement," the official said. "We've told them we don't want that as an excuse to not go forward."

In April, Krinsky met with local Jewish leaders. Afterward they sent him a letter outlining conditions for breaking the stalemate. Among them: Krinsky must publicly acknowledge the community's ownership of the synagogue and its choice of chief rabbi; cease referring to himself as "chief rabbi"; and submit to "a sound, open and transparent financial management."

Krinsky told JTA that he plans to respond to the letter soon…

In November of 2004, Yated Ne'eman had a piece on this controversy representing the side of the Lithuanian community:

In 1994, Lubavitch expressed interest in sending a rabbi to
Vilna, and Mr. Alperowitz agreed. Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky
moved to Vilna, and established his own Chabad House. He
prayed in the community's Taharat Hakodesh shul on Shabbos,
and could not put together a minyan during the week. The
community did not offer him a rabbinical contract.…

After ten years of activity, his school had only 30 children
(7 of which were his own), and not one family had committed
themselves to shemiras hamitzvos. A social worker
involved for years with the community informed us that Rabbi
Krinsky had sent two girls to a Lubavitch school in London,
and mentioned that at most Rabbi Krinsky may have influenced
one or two more Vilna Jews to become slightly observant.

Rabbi Krinsky's social services were paltry in comparison to
that of the community: he sent 20 children to a Lubavitch
camp in Estonia, while the secular community sent 450
children to their own camp. Rabbi Krinsky claimed to help 150
people with his soup kitchen, while the general community was
helping 1,500 — including the same 150 helped by Rabbi
Krinsky.

Even more problematic were the scandals that hovered over his
enterprises. Rabbi Krinsky's soup kitchen was closed down
because it served contaminated food. A scandal erupted when
charges were made that he had stolen money from donors.
Creditors took over the first floor of his Chabad Center to
cover unpaid debts. (He is still embroiled in court cases
over debts.) He collected money around the world to maintain
the Jewish cemetery but never paid the $25,000 to the
community which was his share in the maintenance.

Krinsky has less than 30 die-hard followers within the
community, who are mostly beneficiaries of his food kitchen
or other activities. Of these followers, none have accepted a
Lubavitch way of life on themselves or can even be called
religious.…

For its part, the Baltic Times had a story in September 2004 about the fighting between Chabad and the Lithuanian community. Its report seems to confirm much of what the community said.

Chabad has been in Vilna for ten years. During those ten years it has
held public events and adult education classes. Check and see how many
of these events commemorated the life or yartzeits of the Vilna Gaon,
R. Chaim Volozhoner, R. Chaim Ozer, and other non-Hasidic leaders of
Vilna's past. Then check and see how many of these events commemorated
the life or yartzeits of Chabad rebbes. If the two are not equal, if
the commemoration of Chabad-related figures and events far outnumbers
the others -- and this clearly appears to be the case -- then you can
understand what the Vilna Community is worried about.

Chabad has a sordid history of this type of bad behavior, but it
also has done much good. The Vilna Jewish Community did not seek to
evict Chabad from the city or to curtail Chabad's educational efforts.

But the Community is trying to stop Chabad from running roughshod
over the long-established traditions of Vilna and from taking over
community property and institutions that do not now and never did
belong to Chabad. In this effort, the Jewish Community of Vilna
deserves our support.

Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky does not seem to be the type of person Vilna needs. It seems Chabad has finally recognized this.

Will Rabbi Krinsky be withdrawn from shlichut? I doubt it. But I'm sure there are communities in Asia or in America with no established Jewish community but a need for a mikva, a shul, classes and outreach. Perhaps one day Rabbi Krinsky will use his talents in one of these.

Failed messiah was established and run in 2004 by Mr. Shmarya (Scott)Rosenberg. The site was acquired by Diversified Holdings, Feb 2016. .We thank Mr. Rosenberg for his efforts on behalf of the Jewish Community.

Comment Rules

No anonymous comments.

Use only one name or alias and stick with that.

Do not use anyone else's name or alias.

Do not sockpuppet.

Try to argue using facts and logic.

Do not lie.

No name-calling, please.

Do not post entire articles or long article excerpts.

***Violation of these rules may lead to the violator's comments being edited or his future comments being banned.***